Christina Aguilera’s Long-Awaited ‘Liberation’ Drops: Listen

Christina Aguilera's first album in more than five years, Liberation, finally dropped Friday (June 15). But was it worth the wait?

You tell us.

Aguilera, who released singles "Accelerate" and "Fall in Line" ahead of the LP's release, tweeted earlier this week: "I encourage any fighter/ survivor to be unafraid to go against the grain & search for your own true version of you! Let loose, be free..." And she seems to have done that — the record is full of the type of uninhibited grooves and soul that first put her one-of-a-kind vocals on the map.

“At the end of the day, I am a soul singer,” she says. “When you strip back the words ‘pop star’ and the many things that I’ve done, singing soulfully is where my core, my root and my heart really is. And as you can see, it’s what I’m inspired by.”

She added that while she's excited to head out on tour soon (her next begins on September 25) — her first since becoming a mother — she knows challenges await, too.

“When I’m onstage, there’s not a bigger high, when I’m in connection with my voice and my heart and my soul,” she says. “But at the end [of a performance], I want to wipe it all off, get in my sweatpants, make silly noises with my kids and have someone comfort and cuddle me.”